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JFK memorabilia fetches about $2M at auction

Posted:
02/19/2013 08:26:18 AM EST

Updated:
02/20/2013 11:12:41 AM EST

These two photos by former Eagle photographer Gene Mitchell showing President John Kennedy and his wife, Jackie, at Bousquet Mountain were auctioned off for $650. Ted Kennedy is also featured at right in the right-hand photo. (Photo courtesy of McInnis Auctions)

AMESBURY (AP) -- A collection of John F. Kennedy memorabilia fetched almost $2 million at auction, including $570,000 for the former president's Air Force One leather bomber jacket.

Photographs of the Kennedys at Bousquet Ski Area in Pittsfield in 1958 sold to a competing bidder for $650 -- nearly six times the amount of the estimated value of the historical images. The images were taken by Eagle photographer Gene Mitchell.

The collection of about 2,000 photographs, documents, gifts and other items was auctioned Sunday at John McInnis Auctioneers in Amesbury.

The items belonged to David Powers, Kennedy's assistant and close personal friend who died in 1998.

About 350 people attended the auction, with another 1,000 online bidders.

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The jacket went to an anonymous bidder and was only expected to fetch from $20,000 to $40,000.

Rich Travaglione of Nantucket paid $525 for a 1946 photo of JFK. He tells The Daily News of Newburyport (http://bit.ly/Xmid6Z) he bought the photo because it reminded him of the time his father met Kennedy who was campaigning in Boston's North End.

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